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Dakotera.tumblr is shutting down

It is with a heavy heart that I am announcing the end of the dakotera.tumblr news blog. TLDR: TERA in 2017 isn't the same game I loved years ago and I don't find excitement in continuing the blog anymore.

2 years ago to this very day (June 4th) the first blog post was created and now in 2017 we are at 509 posts with a remarkable 541 followers! I never would have imagined that so many people would discover this small blog about reposting various TERA patch notes, class changes and events, and show their interest by liking/reblogging the articles. It makes me happy to discover so many people who care about this type of news and care about what is happening to TERA. I realize that I'm not even a blip on the radar and that I could have just randomly deleted the blog without saying anything but it makes me feel better to get this off my chest and it definitely feels right to let all of you know why I've come to this decision. Maybe some of you are curious about personal posts like this too.

Why stop now?

Back in 2015 I had a moment where I was slowly getting tired of the endless gear grind after doing the same thing for a few patches, so one day I was reading about TERA information online and found the translated Korean previews and patch notes for content that would be coming about 6 months into the future for western territories. Needless to say, reading this stuff about a new level cap, new dungeons, new classes and balance tweaks was super exciting! I played NA/EU a little less because I was more interested in seeing the future content in Korea (sounds weird I know).

Ultimately, this interest is what drove me to create this blog as a place to bring information from most regions of TERA (KR/NA/EU and JP/RU to a lesser extent) to one place. Seeing the new updates from Bluehole and imagining the potential direction TERA will take in the future kept me motivated to continue.

However in recent years, I feel like the game has strayed away from the path of glory and I find it difficult to be excited when reading KTERA updates anymore. Lately I've ended up questioning Bluehole's (and EME's) decision-making as more updates are posted online. Both of them seem out of touch with the community for years. It's like every patch removes some of the fun I previously had with the game until you're left with something that is a shadow of its former self. Obviously, MMOs need updates to keep their playerbase interested and the TERA in 2017 is different to the game I loved back in 2012/13.

I guess I feel unsatisfied with how Bluehole and En Masse have supported the game over the years. Gender-locked OP classes and more recycled bosses/dungeons made me fatigued. Also I never really liked the current EME staff compared to Tonka, Minea, Harmonia and Treeshark, both personality-wise and in a professional sense of providing a good standard of service. I stopped watching EME's twitch streams soon after Tonka quit because it's just not interesting to me anymore. Oh and that's not even mentioning the 1400 downvote forum topic on the FIHM patch years ago, recent bans from using 3rd party programs like dps meters, the dragon mount fiasco, server ping spikes/crashes, civil unrest not working correctly upon release and everything in-between. The 5th anniversary event didn't motivate me to grind tokens either. Lack of communication and transparency with the playerbase seems like a longstanding issue. Maybe it's just me playing the game for too long or maybe the game has actually been a sinking ship for a while now but I think it's fair to say the game has seen better days.

I didn't intend for this to be a long rant post and I apologize if it seems so, I just wanted to put my thoughts down. This isn't an impulse decision to stop the blog, I was first having thoughts of doing this since mid-2016 but continued on for another year to see if things would look brighter.

What will happen to the blog?

I won't delete the blog so it will stay online for a while. Who knows, it might be useful to someone looking through old stuff. It will probably become a private blog later on.

What will you do without TERA?

TERA has been my main game for almost 5 years now and by that I mean it's the game I would choose to play first and spend most of my free time in. As a result, I've missed out on a few titles I would like to play and if you're wondering, they're not other MMOs (I would like to take a break from endless grinding and RNG for a while and maybe play something more optimized!). With that being said, this post is only saying that I won't be continuing the blog anymore but I'll still be keeping an eye on how future patches turn out, how TERA on consoles will work and what the next 'big thing' will be (another new class or lvl 70 cap maybe?). Of course, I (and I guess most of you) would love to see the game improve from where it's at now.

Closing thoughts

My apologies to everyone that I couldn't continue for longer, I'm at a point where I feel like I've accomplished all my personal goals (both in-game and on this blog) and I'm satisfied leaving it there. Once again, thank you to everyone who read and supported this blog. Whether you were a regular reblogger or a new reader, it gives me great joy that you chose this place as one of your sources of TERA news. You're all awesome.